


Lake Shasta

by sambethe



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Ash as Voq speculation, F/M, Speculation, You've been warned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-28
Updated: 2017-12-28
Packaged: 2019-02-23 06:26:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13184259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sambethe/pseuds/sambethe
Summary: What happens when you're left to resolve two competing memories with two competing identities.





	Lake Shasta

**Author's Note:**

> Quick Ash Tyler ficlet with a side of Ashburn. Mostly playing on the Voq as Ash speculation. If you don’t like the theory, you’ve been warned and proceed with caution.

It’s weird. Disconcerting. Distressing. Alienating.

The list of adjectives to describe how it feels to be standing, water lapping at his ankles, here could be endless.

The clear scent of the pine trees is so familiar. It stirs up memories of hiking the mountain trails while on leave from the Academy. Of being a small boy running along the lakeshore, sand kicking up behind him as he chased after Adam and Josh. The exhilaration of catching his first fish. That one, memorable camping trip his last year of school, sharing a tent with Mel. The smile that tugs at the corner of his mouth is uninvited but maybe not all that unwelcome.

But he can also remember a childhood on Kronos. A solitary one, buried in books and sacred texts. An act almost as ostracizing as the pallor of his skin. One where he filled his hours with the Mok’bara, and searched for his chance to serve.

He shakes his head. Everything here, on the shore of this foreign and familiar lake, is too bright. The skin he wears now stretched - too small, too smooth, too soft.

The urge to scratch is almost overwhelming. The ability to meditate would be most welcome.

Michael’s hand wraps around his wrist, her thumb gliding along that same soft skin. Each slide back and forth steadies his breath while also causing his pulse to beat a staccato rhythm. The contradiction is not lost on Ash.

He still thinks of himself as Ash, and he wonders what that means. If he is betraying that small, quiet boy. The one who seized on the stories of Kahless, who grew up to serve as sech qengwI’.

He can remember that too, the elation of being granted that honor. The devotion that burned due to the faith T’Kuvma showed in him. For seeing him. Voq. But now he also knows what it feels like on board the Discovery. To have his measure taken by Lorca and not come up short. To run drills with his team. To have Michael allow herself to fall asleep beside him, her head resting in his lap.

It all jumbles together, to the point where he no longer knows which set of memories to trust. He knows which must be real, but he’s not convinced that’s the same thing. It is like he’s living some Academy-designed relativistic nightmare and will be quizzed on it in a hall full of his fellow cadets.

Michael’s nail scrapes along the underside of his wrist before her fingers stretch and slide between his own. She squeezes and he squeezes back.

He doesn’t know how to resolve any of this.

A torchbearer to light the beacon.

An outcast.

A Starfleet officer.

Someone who is neither Klingon nor Human.

He watches Michael from the corner of his eye as she stares out across the placid blue water. An orphan, a ward. A mutineer with a sentence in limbo. Someone who is neither Vulcan nor Human on her first trip to Earth.

Ash squeezes her hand again. She doesn’t turn, but he knows she knows, understands the things he can’t put into words. The transformation L’Rell and the Matriarchs wrought.

She had said he would have to sacrifice everything, to become the true torchbearer. He had thought he knew she meant when he agreed. Thought he knew how he might best serve the children of Kahless.

Standing here on the shores of Lake Shasta, or in the halls of Discovery, he isn’t so sure.

That maybe his call to the twenty-four houses was something else entirely. Something Voq couldn’t have understood. Something Ash isn’t sure he will ever understand.

Peace.


End file.
